Apple's new iTunes Match service will scan a user's library of songs, including those ripped from their own CDs, and match the songs up with the library of 18 million songs available through iTunes for $24.99 per year.

When it launches this fall, iTunes Match will offer the same benefits to personally ripped CDs as is granted to music purchased through the iTunes Store. Apple's software will scan a user's hard drive to identify the music they have saved locally, and that content can then be re-downloaded to any device.

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs boasted that the new service will take just minutes to match up songs with the cloud. He ribbed other, competing offerings from Google and Amazon, which take "weeks" to upload extensive music collections.

As was previously rumored, users will not need to upload songs, as their content will simply be matched up with the high-quality 256Kbps AAC audio files Apple has stored on its own iTunes servers. Anything that can be matched up is upgraded to the higher quality, without any digital rights management.

Any songs that don't match up with content available on iTunes will be uploaded and stored so that users can access them on the go.

Jobs said that iTunes Match is an "industry leading offer," with a flat price of $24.99 per year no matter how many songs users may have on their computer.

Shown in concert with the new service were photos of Apple's $1 billion data center in North Carolina. Jobs showed off the eco-friendly facility as evidence that Apple is "serious" about this new product.

"If you want all the benefits of iTunes in the Cloud for music you haven’t purchased from iTunes, iTunes Match is the perfect solution," Apple's official promotional materials read. "It lets you store your entire collection, including music you’ve ripped from CDs or purchased somewhere other than iTunes. For just $24.99 a year.

"Here’s how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library for you to listen to anytime, on any device. Since there are more than 18 million songs in the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud. All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality."

Wait so lets say i have these rediculously old cds (most of which are not english) and are not in the iTunes Song DB, will they still be uploaded to the cloud or will itunes match only allow songs that it recognizes?

Wait so lets say i have these rediculously old cds (most of which are not english) and are not in the iTunes Song DB, will they still be uploaded to the cloud or will itunes match only allow songs that it recognizes?

I hope this is a good matching program but I don't have high hopes, iTunes can't even match album art for most of my cd ripped music, even extremely popular songs and artists, such as most of the AC/DC songs. More than likely it won't be able to match very many at all.

isn't this also a way to make all the pirated music people have downloaded, become legit?
say i've downloaded a pirated CD
once i do itunes match, this ripped music becomes legit and i can access it on any device

I saw the number 20,000 songs. Will there be a limit? I have 3 TB of music on a 4 TB drive. My next option is a drobo. At $25 a year this is great.

Now if I could get all by bootlegs it would be fantastic. Those count for about 2 TB of that music.

Where'd you get a 4TB drive? Is it just two 2TB drives in a case?

Quote:

Originally Posted by kmarei

isn't this also a way to make all the pirated music people have downloaded, become legit?
say i've downloaded a pirated CD
once i do itunes match, this ripped music becomes legit and i can access it on any device

It doesn't "become legit", but you get to pay $25 a year for the rest of eternity for access to it. So there's the money from piracy the music industry wants.

Or you could buy the album for less than a $25 one-time purchase and have it for free anywhere. Many pirates will go legit and the ones that won't will still be paying.

I don't think they mentioned "streaming." It looks like it is just a wireless sync feature. That's a really big difference as you'll still have to download and store the music on whatever device that you want to use for playback.

Actually, other than the new iTunes match service for $25 all this adds for music is wireless sync, not really that much different than attaching your iOS device over USB to iTunes, other than the fact that USB will be much faster.

So, I ripped a CD and imported the music to iTunes and of course synched it to all my iDevices. So iTunes Match allows me to do what exactly? Re-download it to all my iDevices? I guess if I ripped it at 128 or something, I'd get a higher bit rate. Is that the real benefit?

I get that I can play my music on any device with this service. But I have a little trouble swallowing that I have to pay $24.99 a year to listen to music I've already purchased. Also, I also have a lot of music that is not on the iTunes store (I'm a musician...I've got everything from pop, to drum and bugle corps). I guess that's where the local storage comes in?

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

So presumably, it was unnecessary for me to spend hundreds of dollars upgrading my previous iTunes purchases over the past 2 years. Now, for 25 bucks a year, I can upload any 128 kbps iTunes store purchase, and if it's matched, re-download it at 256 kbps.

If I want to take the MP3s I downloaded off of Lala or Amazon or eMusic and upgrade them to iTunes M4A, will it accept them?

So, I ripped a CD and imported the music to iTunes and of course synched it to all my iDevices. So iTunes Match allows me to do what exactly? Re-download it to all my iDevices? I guess if I ripped it at 128 or something, I'd get a higher bit rate. Is that the real benefit?

They're trying to get rid of that syncing completely. You'd never have to sync your music again. That said, I don't think it's for me. I have too many songs that are not in the store. In fact, I really don't use my phone for music very often. If I do, it's usually through Pandora.

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either.

I hope this is a good matching program but I don't have high hopes, iTunes can't even match album art for most of my cd ripped music, even extremely popular songs and artists, such as most of the AC/DC songs. More than likely it won't be able to match very many at all.

Anything where iTunes was able to automatically fill in the song titles during ripping should be fine.

isn't this also a way to make all the pirated music people have downloaded, become legit?
say i've downloaded a pirated CD
once i do itunes match, this ripped music becomes legit and i can access it on any device

Who says it was legal to download that CD? You because somebody offers you to stream media files you provided, does not indemnify you from any prior misdemeanours. If you steel a physical good and then send it via a legit courrier to somebody eles, does this make the recipient the legal owner of that good?

So, I ripped a CD and imported the music to iTunes and of course synched it to all my iDevices. So iTunes Match allows me to do what exactly? Re-download it to all my iDevices? I guess if I ripped it at 128 or something, I'd get a higher bit rate. Is that the real benefit?

If you "of course" sync to all your devices, back up everything, have infinite storage, and never lose anything, you do not need this. But you knew that.

So presumably, it was unnecessary for me to spend hundreds of dollars upgrading my previous iTunes purchases over the past 2 years. Now, for 25 bucks a year, I can upload any 128 kbps iTunes store purchase, and if it's matched, re-download it at 256 kbps.

If I want to take the MP3s I downloaded off of Lala or Amazon or eMusic and upgrade them to iTunes M4A, will it accept them?

It kind of looks like there is very little benefit for people who have been legally obtaining their music either from purchased CDs or from the iTunes Store. However, it does allow people who have pirated music to get potentially higher quality copies direct from the iTunes Store for just the $25 annual fee.

One question might be, what happens when you stop paying the fee? I can't see how they could prevent you from continuing to use those files since they don't have any DRM. I guess you just lose the ability to wirelessly sync those files to new devices.

isn't this also a way to make all the pirated music people have downloaded, become legit?

Yes that's exactly right (even though they won't come right out and say it). Clemency day has arrived. Unless you have music Apple can't match up (like I do), in which case you can only wonder what the hell the RIAA has been complaining about.

Actually, other than the new iTunes match service for $25 all this adds for music is wireless sync, not really that much different than attaching your iOS device over USB to iTunes, other than the fact that USB will be much faster.

And off-site backup for your files. How much would it cost you to pay Mozy, Backblaze, Carbonite to backup your media files?